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Throughout the country, states have prohibited smoking in public areas. Hospitals have declared their work environments to be smoke-free, and are punishing employees when they smoke while working. Persons who smoke stand out in the cold, wind or rain, and smoke away as hurriedly as they are able so that they can go back to work.

In some areas, smoking has become as negatively perceived as drug dependence. these and other stop smoking benefits, numerous smokers have started trying to find ways to quit smoking.

Smoking habits consist of three elements:

1. Smoking for relaxation and pleasure is about 45 percent of the reason that people continue to smoke.

2. Another reason that people continue to smoke is an unconscious connection between cigarettes and pleasurable locations or activities. Then, when people find themselves in these situations, they desire a cigarette. For example, if a person associates watching television with smoking, they will become conditioned to smoke while watching TV. Then, every time that individual watches television, he or she will want a cigarette.. This is about 45 percent of the smoking addiction.

3. A physical addiction to Nicotine is another reason people continue to smoke. Physical addiction is about 10 percent of the reason why people continue to smoke. When people quit smoking, all of the Nicotine is gone from their bodies after about three days!

Numerous strategies can be used to assist individuals learn ways to quit smoking. One of the most inexpensive ways to quit smoking, covered through the majority of insurance companies, is the nicotine patch. Easy to apply, each patch is worn for one day and can be secreted underneath the wearer's clothes. The drawback to these patches, however, is that patches are not very beneficial. Because patches only help treat the physiological addiction, which makes up just 10% of the habit, only about seven percent of the people who use this method will succeed.

Almost an identical success rate is experienced by persons who use nicotine gum or lozenges. Not even one in ten clients who use these strategies is able to these strategies to quit smoking for as long as six months. Moreover, these items sometimes cause adverse effects. They, can be irritating to the gums as well as the lips, and numerous users suffer skin discomfort under the patch. Again, these products treat only the physical dependence, which only comprises about one-tenth of the habit.

A different strategy is the development of counseling and smoking cessation classes. These programs include cognitive therapy together with extensive education about the adverse results of smoking. These strategies are three hundred percent as beneficial as nicotine replacement therapies; about one-fifth of those who try these programs will succeed in quitting for at least six months.

Many smokers have tried laser treatment programs to help quit smoking. This technique is in some cases reimbursed by insurance, even though it is new. Clinical trials held by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), however, indicate that the laser treatments are no more effective than placebo. (Placebo is when people believe they are taking therapy, but really are not.)

Another of the ways to quit smoking seems to be somewhat more useful than formerly used approaches. During one research study, smokers trialed shots to assist them quit smoking by removing the pleasurable effects of the nicotine rush. This strategy, in the preliminary stages of testing for usefulness, thus far seems to work for 15 percent of the patients who attempted it.

Hypnosis is another way of coaching persons to quit smoking. Hypnosis focuses on re-teaching the unconscious mind to instantly substitute other actions to create relaxation and pleasure, as opposed to the cigarette habit. It is also utilized to eliminate or "extinguish" behavioral conditioning such as the association described between cigarettes and actions in the above example, so the person who smokes loses the desire to smoke when in the places that used to trigger it.

Male clients appear to respond better to stop smoking hypnosis than women do. One benefit offered by self hypnosis stop smoking, however, is that, as opposed to individuals utilize nicotine replacement as ways to quit smoking, there are no undesirable side effects.

One other helpful characteristic of hypnosis is that it focuses on the 90% facet of the problem that is psychological, versus the other strategies that merely work against the 10% component of the problem that is physical. For this reason, hypnosis has a noticeably higher treatment success than the aforementioned methods of smoking cessation. Traditional hypnosis strategies can provide a 35% likelihood of success, while Ericksonian hypnosis can yield a 50% or greater treatment success.

A recently introduced, innovative, and certainly better alternative that allows individuals to overcome a cigarette habit is Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP. This approach is far more successful than traditional methods of quit smoking hypnosis because it does not rely on post-hypnotic suggestions at all. The majority of clients, particularly those who tend to be analytical in nature, resist post-hypnotic suggestions. Professionals who use NLP coach the client's unconscious mind to focus on the same exact cognitive processes that trigger the mental addiction to smoking, to treat it!

A good NLP stop smoking strategy created by a trained NLP Therapist can offer a success rate of as high as 70% or more.

Summary: Most smoking cessation courses try to use nicotine replacement products as ways to quit smoking. Some strategies, including smoking cessation and cognitive or behavioral treatment sessions, work to aid the mind use ways to quit smoking.

Although hypnosis works more effectively than other approaches, primarily with male patients, most people do not rate it as the most beneficial way to quit smoking. NLP, which addresses the mental components of nicotine dependency, actually assists people to change their thought processes so that they are able to quit most successfully.

Because 90% of a person's struggle with addiction to cigarettes is psychological, these strategies are much more effective than just replacing the nicotine and treating the 10% part of the addiction that is physiological.

Conclusion: A number of smoking cessation programs, including nicotine replacement products and counseling have been developed. These approaches typically are often successful for less than one-fifth of those who attempt them. In comparison, hypnosis yields a much greater rate of effectiveness. NLP is even more beneficial in coaching individuals to successfully combat the psychological nature of their habit and experience immeasurably more success in their goal of becoming smoke-free.

Alan B. Densky, CH is the developer of the best way to quit cigarettes with hypnotism. He now offers a potent Quit Chewing Tobacco program based on the same techniques. Learn more at his Neuro-VISION hypnosis site where you can watch Free NLP videos and articles.